Chapter Twenty-Two – CJ #2
“You little asshole!” CJ exploded. “I’m telling Dad.”
“But he’s not going to be happy neither. Mom don’t want her babies fussing and she especially don’t want you two motherfuckers to always fucking yap and throw fucking hands.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Diesel said to Axel, temporarily losing CJ as to what he meant.
“Enter your fucking argument into evidence as Exhibit A for Dad?” Axel nodded. “Yes, I would. Then, I’d tell him I got recordings from Mom’s office ‘cause I do. I just haven’t had time to listen.” He glowered between them. “I was taking care of something.”
“Axel, if you showed Uncle Christopher either piece of evidence—”
“You and CJ are toast, so I suggest you shut the fuck up about my spy stuffs.”
“I would be fucked,” Diesel spat. “CJ would be fine.”
CJ refrained from mentioning the odds were against Diesel because of Rebel and not anything else.
“Don’t think so, D.,” Axel said. “I don’t know about earlier, but this argument integrates that CJ wants Mom to like you and Rebel together now.”
“Insinuates,” Diesel snapped, Axel’s words agitating him again.
“What does integrate mean again?” Axel asked.
“To mix or take part in,” CJ told him, his mind spinning because Axel was right.
Dad would be furious on several fronts with both CJ and Diesel. However… “You do know Mom and Dad spend time together in here sometimes, Axel?”
“I don’t care,” Axel said. “I need to keep him in line, too.”
Alarm raced across Diesel’s face. “Answer a question before I explain why having your listening devices in the rose garden is such a bad idea, Ax.”
“What?”
“Do you have anything in their bedroom?”
Axel scowled. “That’s gross. Mom and Dad do Mom and Dad stuffs in there. She gets a lot of babies, so I know he must put his cock in her. Dad says that’s how babies are made.”
CJ blushed to the tips of his fucking toes and for once, Diesel was fucking speechless.
“When I see all those beautiful chicks on those videos with all those dudes and knowing that’s how babies are made…?” Axel scowled. “I wish that motherfucker never told me ‘cause that’s what he does to Mom—”
“Fuck, Axel, enough!” Diesel barked. “Enough. We get the fucking point.”
“Too well as a matter of fact.” CJ didn’t know if he’d ever watch a fucking porn flick again. “Why did Dad even say that to you?”
“’Cause I wanted to fucking know how babies were made,” Axel said in exasperation. “I didn’t know why Mom got Gunner in her. She hadn’t gotten Jo yet.”
“Right.” As embarrassing as this conversation was, CJ had to forge ahead. If he didn’t, Axel would end up traumatized. It would serve the little monster right, but he didn’t want his mother embarrassed. “You know what you see on those videos with those girls with those men?”
“Uh huh.”
CJ rocked on his feet. “So, uh—” He swallowed and glanced at Diesel for help.
“Uh, so, Ax,” Diesel started as nonplussed as CJ. “Aunt Meggie and Uncle Christopher…they might engage in what you see on those videos in other places beside their bedroom. This rose garden, for instance.”
Axel considered Diesel’s words, then his eyes rounded and he made an ‘O’ of his mouth. He ran to the bench Diesel had been sitting on and crawled under it. A moment later, he reappeared with a tiny microphone. He stuffed it in his pocket.
“Where else are they?” Diesel asked.
“The foyer. All along the staircases. Mom’s office.
Dad’s office at the club. The hallways. Dad’s mancave.
Dad’s table at the club. The kitchens—here and at the club.
The gym. The natatorium. The den. The living room.
The dining room. The media room. The game room.
The basement. The library. The breezeway. The hallways.”
Diesel and CJ gaped at him.
“I got my stuffs last week and placed it before Mom got back. Dad don’t care what I get in the mail.
Mom likes to know, but she wasn’t here. I might’ve told her, but I make sure to get her stuffs so when my boxes comes, I can give them to her.
Then, she don’t care what else I get ‘cause she thinks most of it belongs to her.”
“Axel,” Diesel gritted. “All the fucking arguing in the world will not get you off if you don’t fucking behave. Uncle Christopher will fucking execute you.”
“Nuh uh. Mom would execute him,” Axel spat.
“Mom loves Dad,” CJ said.
“She loves us more, stupid. Oh, brother. Another fucking thing I got to add to my wall stuffs.”
“If you fuck up a wall—”
“Shut up, Diesel,” Axel ordered. “Dad’s helping me.”
CJ’s jaw dropped and he stiffened, not that Axel noticed. He was facing off with Diesel.
“What, Axel?” Diesel gritted.
Axel gave a long-suffering sigh. “I expect better from you, dick breath. That’s what. As my attorney and my brother.”
“I didn’t do anything with Rebel!”
Folding his arms, Axel scowled. “You brought Jana here. That was enough. That upset Reb a lot and you know it did. You live in the frying pan and still jump into the fucking fire. Calling CJ perfect wasn’t being nice neither.
To me, you’re perfect, Diesel, but I don’t think it was the way I heard you say, fuckface. ”
“I wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true,” Diesel sneered, doubling down.
“That means you’re a fuck up then,” Axel said darkly. “’Cause you said that too.”
Hurt crossed Diesel’s face and he looked at Axel, a wealth of pain on his face that made CJ feel so sorry for him.
“I don’t care if you’re upset, Diesel,” Axel told him. “You upset CJ, and that wasn’t fair neither. I already fucking told you we all love you and I’m not a man who likes to repeat himself. But lately that’s all I’ve been doing with you motherfuckers.”
“I guess you’re disappointed in me too, Axel?” Diesel said, the words brimming with resentment.
“Why should I be if it don’t matter to you, motherfucker?” Axel yelled. “I’m not wasting my fucking time on no motherfucker who don’t waste his time on me.”
“I didn’t do you anything!”
“You were mean to CJ for no fucking reason. If it was upside down, I’d be mad at him, too!”
“Reversed, Axel,” Diesel gritted. “It’s reversed.”
“It could be fucking sideways and it still don’t make it right,” Axel said.
“You don’t know the full story.”
“I don’t got to know the full story. Context clues tells me CJ said something about you and Rebel that would piss Dad off and send that tempora mental motherfucker over the edge.”
That should’ve been temperamental, but the spirit was there, so CJ remained silent.
“I don’t exactly know how CJ tried to take up for you, but I know he did. That’s what C. does. And, motherfucker, if you don’t know always wanting to fucking help people don’t make you perfect, but the opposite, then you’re fucking stupid.”
“Do you know what Aunt Meggie did, Axel?” Diesel barked. “She pretended she was concerned about my mother then said she’d disown me because of Rebel.”
“Motherfucker, put some respect on Mom’s name or I’m blowing your fucking tongue out of your mouth,” Axel warned. “That way you’ll live the rest of your fucking life never being able to talk again.”
“I’m not disrespecting her! She disrespected me!”
Axel narrowed his eyes, then turned and closed the door. “Explain.”
Stomping back to the bench, Diesel sat. Axel nodded to CJ, indicating he take the spot next to Diesel. Sighing, CJ complied, watching as Axel paced with his hands behind his back as Diesel told the story. Here and there, CJ clarified a point or added his own take, but mostly he remained silent.
“So, genius, what the fuck is your verdict?” Diesel demanded when he finished.
Axel halted in front of him. “My verdict is you’re still a stupid motherfucker.”
Diesel gasped.
“Mom loves you as one of us. She wants to help you find your mom and help her so you’d really smile again. But Reb’s her daughter. You’re an old motherfucker and Rebel’s brother—”
“You don’t understand—”
“Speak for your fucking self, Diesel. Think about it this way. Suppose CJ wanted to be with Jo—sorry C, but this is for the greater good—and Mom asked him if he was out of his fucking mind. He didn’t care though, so I got Mom to back off CJ until Jo was older, then that motherfucker still acted brand new and fucked with Jo.
Do you think Mom wouldn’t either want him dead or never want to see him again? ”
Although the situations weren’t exactly similar, CJ saw that Axel’s scenario got through to Diesel. However, he was a stubborn motherfucker.
“Jo and CJ are biological—”
Growling, Axel stomped Diesel’s foot.
“Ouch, fuck!” Diesel yelled.
“Ignore the blood part and think about the relation, fuck face,” Axel yelled. “As a matter of fact, CJ would get killed fucking quicker for that.”
Very fucking true.
Axel stomped Diesel’s other foot. When Diesel went to snatch him, Axel dodged his hands and bit his cheek.
Diesel jumped to his feet, so CJ stood to hold him back. Axel kicked Diesel’s thigh and he sprawled back onto the bench.
“You don’t deserve Rebel,” Axel spat. “You’re mean, whiny, and a feel-sorry-for-himself baby.
That don’t mean I don’t love you as my brother.
Mom’s a girl like Rebel and she wants to protect her.
She must know what it feels like to be with an old motherfucker when she was still a teenager ‘cause of Dad, but at least Dad liked Mom. You don’t like Rebel, Jana, Tabitha, or no girl.
You barely like Mom. Maybe Tabitha isn’t the miserable cunt.
Maybe you are. Maybe Uncle Johnnie isn’t the fucking idiot of the family.
Maybe you are. ‘Cause, motherfucker, you mistaked what Mom meant. Either on purpose to be a whiny baby again or by accident ‘cause you’re fucking stupid. So, which is it, Diesel?”
Glaring at Axel, Diesel clenched his jaw.
“Don’t answer. I don’t care. As for Kaia, I already warned you about that motherfucker. You shouldn’t have hit him.”
“He made Jana laugh.”
“At least somebody did. You can’t even make your fucking self laugh, so we know you don’t know how to make her smile.”
“That isn’t fucking true. Jana laughs with me all the time.”